Paul Gitsham - The Last Straw

“The timing still isn’t quite right for her to have murdered Tunbridge, but she definitely had enough time to get to the university and back to help Spencer hide the evidence.”

Hastings groaned, looking distressed. He buried his head in his hands.

Now wasn’t the time for recriminations, decided Warren. “What’s done is done — we’ll deal with it later. Now we have an arrest to make and I’m betting that when we find Hemmingway, we’ll also find Spencer.”

* * *

For the second time that day, Jones and Sutton were waiting, dressed in stab-proof vests, around the corner from a suspect’s dwelling. This time, the target premises were a small, two-bedroom student flat in a converted family home. A call to the letting agency had revealed the house to be a two-floor property; the two floors shared a common hallway, but a second, internal door had been added at the end of it to split the house into two separate units. The upstairs apartment was currently empty, awaiting new students; the ground floor was occupied by Hemmingway and her flatmate, another student at the university. This time there was no back door; nevertheless two officers were hidden in the rear alleyway in case the suspects made it out of a bedroom window.

As before, the forced-entry team stood by with their two-man battering ram. Maybe it wouldn’t be needed this time. Jones’ radio squawked; everybody was set. With one last glance at Sutton to check he was ready, Warren set off up the short garden path. The full recycle bins in the tiny front yard confirmed that somebody had at least put the bins out in the last couple of days. The door had two doorbells, conveniently labelled A for the ground floor and B for the first floor. Warren rang both, having decided that gaining entry to the building was the first priority.

Two chimes, one higher pitched than the other, rang inside. A nice touch, it meant the occupants of the two flats could tell who was being visited. To Warren’s surprise, he heard immediate movement and a second later a muffled voice, “Coming, hold on a moment.” This was followed almost immediately by the metallic scratching of a door chain being applied, then the heavy click of a lock being turned. The door opened a few inches to reveal a mass of dark curly hair, framing a curious left eye. Almost certainly Hemmingway’s flatmate.

Warren held up the arrest warrant. “Police. I have a warrant for the arrest of Clara Hemmingway. Please open the door.”

The left eye turned from curious to shocked, then disappeared without a word as the door closed again. Immediately, there was a metallic scratching as the door chain was removed and the door opened fully.

“You’re too late, Officer. She left this morning with her suitcase.”

* * *

The air in the CID squad room was leaden with despair. Twice in one day the team had been pumped full of adrenaline, ready to make an arrest. Twice they had been let down. Police work, particularly crime-solving, was always a constant series of ups and downs, something that experienced officers such as Jones knew only too well. Nevertheless today had been especially trying. Hemmingway had been officially added to the manhunt along with Spencer and now it was just a waiting game again.

The young woman had let them in without comment, confirming her identity as Mary Coates, Hemmingway’s flatmate. She’d led Jones and Sutton into the small living room that they shared, even as other officers entered the house en masse, performing a quick room-to-room search of both apartments. Empty.

The young woman had been eager to please, more than willing to talk about Hemmingway; however, she knew little about her housemate’s life and even less about her current whereabouts. As he looked about the living room, Warren felt a twinge of sympathy again for Hemmingway. The room was sparsely decorated, with a couple of small, worn couches and a cheap, old-fashioned TV hooked up to a Freeview box and a DVD player. The only personal touches to the room appeared to be a few framed photographs on the mantelpiece above the disused fireplace. Closer inspection had revealed them all to be of Coates. None seemed to be of Hemmingway.

Warren thought back to the interview with Hemmingway, earlier in the week. He remembered feeling sorry for the poor girl who had seemed so out of place. The feeling had become even stronger as he spoke to her housemate. The two girls had both been brought up in Essex, only a dozen miles from each other, yet they might as well have been from different continents. Coates’ accent and precise diction spoke of expensive private schools, the pictures of her on the mantelpiece showed her on a yacht with a smiling, tanned family somewhere hot; an action shot of her jumping a fence on a chestnut-brown horse; a family Christmas with three generations smartly dressed sitting around a table groaning with festive food.

How must it have felt for Clara Hemmingway to be reminded of everything that she didn’t have even as she sat in her own living room watching TV? Then Warren remembered the torn, bloody throat of Alan Tunbridge, the lifeless eyes of Mark Crawley and the tear-filled eyes of his grieving family. His sympathy evaporated instantly.

In the end, Coates could shed little light on Hemmingway’s whereabouts. She’d said that she had heard her come in with somebody else early the previous evening. They had been in a rush and had gone straight to her room. She had heard drawers being opened and closed quickly, before the door to her room was slammed shut and relocked. Coates had got up to go and speak to her about a gas bill that had arrived, but Hemmingway had been flustered and in a rush and said she’d deal with it later, before racing out of the front door.

Upon prompting, Coates had been able to remember only scant details about what Hemmingway was wearing. She’d caught a glimpse of the person with her and felt certain that it was the same man that she’d seen coming and going occasionally over the last few weeks. It was clear that Clara Hemmingway’s social life held no interest for Mary Coates and they had never discussed boyfriends or significant others, but she got the impression that they were seeing each other, at least casually. Warren doubted she even knew what course her flatmate was on; nevertheless her description of the visitor was familiar. As they had finished the interview Coates’ eyes had suddenly lit up with a memory.

“I remember one evening hearing her getting ready to go out. The man was around again and he was dawdling over something. Clara sounded impatient and shouted something like, ‘Come on, Tom, we’re going to miss the film’.”

Sutton and Jones exchanged glances. It wouldn’t stand up in court but it was good enough for them: Tom Spencer and Clara Hemmingway had been dating.

Karen Hardwick sat at her desk, staring at the reams of paper in front of her. The story of what happened almost exactly a week before was coming together; she was sure of it. And so was everybody else. It needed just a few final pieces and waiting for those pieces was agonising. Around the office, workers were scratching their heads, or staring at paper in the same way she was.

The excitement of the raids on the flats of Spencer and Hemmingway had now turned to frustration as the two main suspects in both murders had vanished. It was now what the papers would breathlessly call a ‘manhunt’. Even as she sat here, discussions were under way as to whether it was time to give up the element of surprise and release the suspects’ names and photographs to the press or to hold off another twenty-four hours and perhaps catch them unawares. The fact that they had both disappeared suggested to Karen that they already assumed that they were wanted.